Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 22.djvu/847

 Y M S Y N 811 to the Pathology ami Practice of Surgery, thirty-one original memoirs published in periodicals from time to time ; and in 1861 he issued another volume of Observations in Clinical Surgery. Syrne's charac- ter is not inaptly summed up in the dedication to him by his old pupil, Dr John Brown, of the series of essays Locke and Sydenham ; "Verax, capax, perspicax, sagax, efficax, tenax." See Memorials of the Life qf James Syme, by R. Paterson, M.D., with portraits, Edinburgh, 1874. SYMEON OF DURHAM was the author of two works of great importance in English history, especially in that of northern England, viz., the Historia Dunelmensis Ecdesix and the Historia Reyum. Very little is known of his life. There is no record of the date of his birth or death. He was at Jarrow about 1080, before the monastic community moved thence to Durham (1083). He probably did not become a professed monk till some time after that event. In 1104 he was present at the opening of the coffin and the examination of the remains of St Cuthbert. Between 1104 and 1108 he composed his History of the Church of Durham, bringing it down to the death of William of St Carilef (1096). Many years later he compiled his Historia Reyum, which is a chronicle of Northumbrian affairs from the date at which Bede stops (731). He was also probably the author of a letter De Archiepiscopis Eboraci, but not of the treatise De Miraculis ft Translationibus sometimes attributed to him. Selden, in his introduction to Twysden's Decent Scriptores, attributes the Historia Dunelmensis Ec- desix to Turgot, prior of that church ; but Mr Arnold, in the preface to his edition of Symeon's works, successfully disproves Selden's assertions. This work is original and of great value ; the Historia Regum, on the other hand, is a compilation from various sources, brought down by Symeon to 1121 or 1129. Both Avorks were continued by other hands. See Twysden, Decem Scriptores, and prefaces to Symeon's works, by Mr Hodgson Hinde (Surtees Society edition, 1868) and by Mr T. Arnold (Rolls Series edition, 1882-85). SYMEON, surnamed METAPHRASTES, Byzantine hagio- grapher, according to Leo Allatius (De Symeonum Scriptis, Paris, 1664), lived during the first half of the 10th century under Leo the Philosopher and his successor at Constanti- nople, where he successively held the positions of secretary, grand logothete, and master of the palace. This view, subse- quently adopted by Cave, Fabricius, and others, was after- wards disputed, but not convincingly, by Oudin (Comm. de Scriptt. Eccles. Antiq., vol. ii., 1722), who identified Meta- phrastes with another Symeon who also held the offices of logothete and master of the palace under John Comnenus, and published a still extant Epitome Canonum in 1160. Symeon's Metaphrases, as his legends are called (whence his name Metaphrastes), occur in MS. in many European libraries ; many of them are also to be found in the Acta Sanctorum and similar collections ; but others remain un- printed. Allatius and Cave recognize only 122 of the hundreds of lives assigned to him as genuine. The titles of other writings of Symeon, with references to further authorities, will be found in the article "Metaphrastes," by Gass, in Herzog-Plitt's EncyU., vol. ix. SYMMACHUS, pope from 498 to 514, had Anastasius II. for his predecessor and was himself followed by Hormisdas. He was a native of Sardinia, apparently a convert from paganism, and was in deacon's orders at the time of his election. The choice was not unanimous, another candidate, Laurentius, having the support of a strong Byzantine party ; and both competitors were con- secrated by their friends, the one in the Lateran church and the other in that of St Mary, on 22d November 498. A decision was not long afterwards obtained in favour of Symmachus from Theodoric, to whom the dispute had been referred ; but peace was not established until 505 or 506, when the Gothic king ordered the Laurentian party to surrender the churches of which they had taken posses- sion. An important incident in the protracted controversy was the decision of the " palmary synod " (see vol. xix. p. 492). The remainder of the pontificate of Symmachus was uneventful ; history speaks of various churches in Rome as having been built or beautified by him. SYMMACHUS, QUINTUS AURELIUS, consul in 391, and one of the most brilliant representatives in public life and in literature of the old pagan party at Rome, was educated in Gaul, and, having discharged the functions of praetor and quaestor, rose to higher offices, and in 373 was proconsul of Africa. His public dignities, which included that of pontiff, his great wealth and high character, added to his reputation for eloquence, marked him out as the champion of the pagan senate against the measures which the Christian emperors directed against the old state re- ligion of Rome. In 382 he was banished from Rome by Gratian for his protest against the removal of the statue and altar of Victory from the senate-house, and in 384, when he was prefect of the city, he addressed to Valentinian a letter praying for the restoration of these symbols. This is the most interesting of his literary remains, and called forth two replies from St Ambrose, as well as a poetical refutation from Prudentius. After this Symmachus was involved in the rebellion of Maximus, but obtained his pardon from Theodosius, and appears to have continued in public life up to his death. Of the writings of Symmachus we possess (1) ten books of Epistles, published after his death by his son. The model followed by the writer is Pliny the Younger, and from a reference in the Saturnalia of Macrobius (bk. v., i. 7), in which Symmachus is introduced as one of the interlocutors, it appears that his contemporaries deemed him second to none of the ancients in the " rich and florid " style. The first edition of the Epistles by Bart. Cynischus (s. I. et a., but pub- lished under Pope Julius II.) is very incomplete, and the collection was only gradually completed by subsequent editors. (2) Frag- ments of nine Complimentary Orations from a palimpsest, of which part is at Milan and part in the Vatican, were discovered by Mai, who published the Milan fragments in 1815, the Roman ones in his Scriptorum Vctcrum Nova Collcciio, vol. i. (1825), and the whole in 1846. The work was not well done, and many corrections are given in a new collation by 0. Seeck (Commcntationes in Honorem Th. Mommseni, Berlin, 1877, p. 595 sq. ), which has been followed by an edition of the works of Symmachus in the Monumcnta Gc>-- manias Historica, Berlin, 1883. SYMPHONY. See Music, vol. xvii. p. 95. SYNAGOGUE (o-waywyr/), literally " assemblage," is the term employed to denote either a congregation of Jews, i.e., a local circle accustomed to meet together for worship and religious instruction, or the building in which the con- gregation met. In the first sense the word is a translation of riD33, keneseth, in the second of flDJ^n n^, beth liakkeneseth. The germ of the synagogue, that is, of religious assemblages dissociated from the ancient ritual of the altar, may be found in the circle of the prophets and their disciples (see especially Isa. viii. 16 sq.) ; but the synagogue as an insti- tution characteristic of Judaism arose after the work of Ezra, and is closely connected with the development of that legal Judaism to which his reformation gave definite shape. From the time of Ezra downwards it was the busi- ness of every Jew to know the law; the school (beth ham- midrdsJi) trained scholars, but the synagogue, where the law was read every Sabbath (Acts xv. 21), was the means of popular instruction. Such synagogues existed in all parts of Judaea in the time of Psalm Ixxiv. 8 (probably a psalm of the Persian period); in Acts xv. 21 it appears that they had existed for many generations "in every city." This held good not only for Palestine but for the Disper- sion; in post-Talmudic times the rule was that a synagogue must be built wherever there were ten Jews. And, though the name "synagogue" varies with Trpoo-evx^ ("place of prayer "), it appears that everywhere the assemblage was primarily one for instruction in the law : the synagogue, as Philo puts it, was a StSao-KaAetov. A formed institution